Today, Bert Mizusawa, the Republican taking on US Sen. Mark Warner this fall, made a post rife with anti-immigrant talking points.
Mizusawa, a retired general, said, “It is high time we become a nation of Americans.”
“Those who immigrate legally must assimilate to the American way of life instead of turning America into the land they fled,” Mizusawa said.
To me, statements like these reek of what’s known as the great replacement theory and should be called out as such.
The great replacement theory is a racist conspiracy theory rooted in the false idea that there’s some kind of plan to replace white people with non-white immigrants for political reasons.
There are extreme versions of it that are more straightforwardly racist, but Mizusawa’s post is a more mainstream version of great replacement theory used in support of cracking down on immigration from Latin America.
By saying, “it is high time we become a nation of Americans,” Mizusawa is implying that Americans have already been replaced and are in need of some kind of restoration.
By insisting that immigrants “assimilate to the American way of life,” Mizusawa is denying that the contributions of immigrants are really part of American life and help shape it.
He calls for an “easier process for legal immigration” at the same time he’s warning about America becoming like the countries people emigrate from.
Mizusawa is not expected to win this November. But his rhetoric should not be taken lightly as it comes after the Trump administration has tried and failed to end birthright citizenship.
